


Dangerous

by fastepp



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, John Lives, Julia Burnsides Lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 00:42:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16566305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fastepp/pseuds/fastepp
Summary: “They found Kalen, Magnus,they found him.”"Who?"-Once upon a time, Julia decided that she would have to become very dangerous very fast.





	Dangerous

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically for a broader au, where Angus McDonald is a Mob Boss and Is Just Resigned To It By Now, but?? We've only discussed it in DM's basically. This one is for u Mick.

One day, when Julia is back, back in the land of the living, back in their home, back in Magnus’ arms, Taako and Merle stop by the Burnsides' cottage with tension flickering in their eyes.

Magnus' immediate reaction is to reach for the Chance Lance, which rests next to the door just-in-case, but Taako puts his hand on Magnus’ bicep and shakes his head. Merle pushes past him to the living room, where Julia is working, without a word.

Taako pats his arm “We just need to borrow your wife for a second, homie, no worries.” Magnus doesn’t believe that for a second but he follows Merle into the living room with Taako in tow.

“You found him? You’re sure?” Julia is saying when they cross the threshold.

Magnus says, “Found who?” And Merle’s eyes dart to Magnus before widening when Julia responds, emotion tight in her throat, “They found Kalen, Magnus, _they found him._ ”

And before Taako can tug him out of the room, Magnus says, “Who?”

-

Magnus isn’t usually this out of the loop. He isn’t the brains of the group (most of the Bureau would agree that _none_ of the Tres Horny Bois are, actually, and it was rather lucky Angus had adopted them), but he isn’t an idiot. He notices things. He can make a chair the exact measurements of someone’s ass and train a dog to do a flip. But this- he can’t figure it out.

After that day, with the tension in his friend's eyes and his wife’s face breaking and then hardening in the span of a second, everything’s been off. Who is Kalen? What did he do that Taako and Merle were tracking him down for Julia to kill? And she _is_ planning to kill him- he’s seen the look in her eyes. Magnus pauses. Where had he seen her look like that before? Before Raven’s Roost was destroyed but- why? When?

His head hurts.

-

Once upon a time, Julia decided that she would have to become very dangerous very fast. It was not when Merle interrupted her wood carving to tell her they’d found Kalen. It was not when she faced the Raven Queen when they were petitioning to return her to life. It was not even when she joined the protests against Kalen for the first time in Raven’s Roost. It was when, once upon a time, a boy barely into his twenties but with the eyes of a warrior stumbled into her father’s shop carrying an intricately carved duck and a wide smile. It was then, she decided, that she would become dangerous for this boy.

It was time to be dangerous.

-

John is not a very social person. Sometimes he thinks it’s a result of a million souls in him for well over- he shouldn’t dwell on that. He knows he shouldn’t. He sighs and adjusts the potted plant Merle had given him last week so that it would get more light through the window. Merle is the only person who he talks to at all, these days. For good reason, he shivers, but turns to grab a watering can. As he pours a meager amount of water into the soil, there’s a knock at his door.

-

Julia is not one for magic. Never was, even before she died, but she knew it ran in the family. Her great uncle had children outside of Raven’s Roost that were an eclectic sort of wizard, but wizardry is not what she’s looking for today. No, today she is looking for John.

-

John is not prepared to open the door to Julia Burnsides, fresh (if a couple years and 3 months is fresh) from the dead. She does not wait for an invitation inside.

-

Julia is on a mission, and she will not be leaving today without completing it.

-

John is even less prepared for when Julia speaks to him over a steaming cup of tea he doesn’t remember pouring for her. “I want to make a pact with you.”

John blinks.

-

Julia has done her research, studied books and questioned practitioners. She’s never been one for plots, less than she is for magic, but she’s rather proud of this one.

-

John splutters, “w-what?”

Julia sets down her tea and John catches a dangerous glint in her eye. One he’d seen in Merle’s once, in a different place in a different time. Only he didn’t think this would turn out quite the same way.

-

“I want you to make a Warlock pact with me.” Julia says simply. She wasn’t around for the battle on The Day of Story and Song, but she, along with every being in the multiplanes, had heard what The Hunger- what John was. What he could do. What he could still do.

-

John hasn’t stopped spluttering “I-I don’t have that power anymore, I gave it up, they defeated m- The Hunger.” But that isn’t quite true. John knows it, he sees it in the mirror everyday, sees it when Merle visits and makes him _talk and talk and_ \- but how does _she_ know?

-

Julia knows because Merle knows. Merle is much wiser than he lets on, and much sadder, when he confides this truth to Julia.  
“It hasn’t gone away you know,” he says to her offhandedly, when he’s working with her in the shop. On some living wood piece a customer had commissioned, but that seems less important when Merle starts talking.  
“I can see it in his eyes most days,” Julia doesn’t ask who, or what, just lets her hands guide the tools through the grain and lets Merle talk, “he hates it. He wants to make up for it, but doesn’t know how.” He laughs, a wet sound, and Julia smiles sadly.  
 “We’re a bit the same that way I guess. Y’know, besides the creepy glowing cracks and black eyes.”

-

John does want to make up for it, whatever ‘it’ is, and so he agrees to Julia’s terms. When the pact seals he feels something rushing between them and Julia is- John is-

Different.

Dangerous.

But not, John thinks, Hungry.


End file.
